online day 3: gender

Simone de Beauvoir's statement is very spot on. We are born with a certain sex but I believe we grow into being women and men. It starts off by how we are raised. Girls are stereotyped to wear dresses and play with dolls, while boys dress in overalls and play with plastic swords. But what happens to the people in between? What about the girl that did not play with the dolls, or what about the boy who did not like to play in the dirt or fight? Does this person automatically become gay as some might think? I do not believe so. I think the way we are raised does greatly determine how we will act and what traits we possess, but I do not think if a boy starts playing with dolls he is “becoming a woman.”

I believe the attention from the media is greatly effecting the ideas of how people view sex, gender, and sexuality. Sex is a major topic on the eyes of media, let alone the whole country, and people will do anything to hear the next buzz about it. I feel like sexuality it you are a straight man or woman can be easily shown through the media and throughout our everyday lives without the person being scrutinized or looked at weirdly. But I do believe for homosexuals, sexuality is something kept more secretive. Homosexuals are looked upon if they demonstrate their sexuality freely and the general public usually is disgraced by this. Do you think that is right? Should gays and lesbians be able to demonstrate their sexuality more freely?

For this week's readings I thought one story was very interesting, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story.” It talked about how the gender of the child was not told to anyone but the child's parents. I thought it was very interesting because the child was not stereotyped and knew it could be good at everything, which included male and female activities. “X” was very comfortable in it's own skin and I believe everyone should be comfortable in their sexuality because of this. The story gave me a sense that sex does determine a male or female, but gender defines who a person is and how they act.

-EMILY ZABOR